


Death and Rebirth

by ChaosDancer12



Series: CodeVerse [3]
Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Additional Warnings Apply, And it takes place before Dreamswap Dream ate the Apples, Backstory, Death, Takes place before Code of the Soul, This is my own version of the Backstory of Dreamswap, Tissue Warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-11
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:14:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24669718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaosDancer12/pseuds/ChaosDancer12
Summary: This is Chaos's backstory and I should warn you, it's not a nice one, but it should help to explain how and why she became who she is in 'Code of the Soul.'
Series: CodeVerse [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1611211
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11





	1. Death

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story that I am transferring from Wattpad to AO3 to explain the backstory of Chaos, a Swap!Sans that plays an important part in 'Code of the Soul.'
> 
> Chaos is a villager born about the time that Dreamswap Nightmare and Dream were created by the Tree of Feelings, and her family became the Guardians's Foster Family. She grew up alongside Nightmare and Dream, and she was the baby of the group, she was really close to Nightmare, but everything changed the day before Dream ate the Apples....

"I just don't understand it." Chaos told Nightmare as she swung her legs, the two of them were sitting on their usual branch on Nightmare's side of the tree. "Why do they want me to go and find these herbs now, most healers in training learn where to find them during the beginning of their training, not now."

"Well, maybe it's an emergency." Nightmare told her. "Or they couldn't find anyone else to harvest them, who knows? I don't."

"You and Dream don't get sick like humans do." Chaos replied. "I just have a really bad feeling about this, I don't know if I should do this, I mean, I know that some of the other healers in training don't have anything to do today, so, why aren't they going instead?"

"That is something to worry about but maybe, you're overthinking this. It could be nothing and they realised that they missed you out when it was time to teach the healers in training where to find the herbs and they want you to catch up with them."

"Yeah, it could be that." Chaos said, before she took off a small necklace that she was wearing, before she gave it to Nightmare.

"Chaos... What are you..."

"Just look after it for me, okay?" She told him. "I just have a really bad feeling that something is wrong, I could be wrong and it could be nothing and if it is, I'll pick it up when I come back but if I don't...."

She couldn't finish that sentence and Nightmare knew it, in a village that worshiped Dream and hated Nightmare, Chaos stood out because she cared for Nightmare, she considered him a friend and she wasn't one of Dream's followers.

"You will come back!" Nightmare said, almost shouting those words. "Promise me, that you will come back to me!"

Chaos looked at him before she smiled. "Okay." She said. "I promise. I'll come back, no matter how long it takes me, I will come back for you Nighty, okay?"

Nightmare nodded his head, before they climbed down the tree. Chaos adjusted her herb satchel before she pulled Nightmare into a hug. "Well, I guess that this is it, I'll see you when I get back."

"Okay." Nightmare said before she pulled away. Chaos smiled. "Nighty, love you!" She said, just before she started to walk away from Nightmare.

"Love you too!" Nightmare said, waving back to her.

Chaos waved back at him, until she was out of his line of sight. Nightmare looked at the necklace that had been entrusted to him, before he tucked it away somewhere safe. He knew that Chaos would never break a promise, so why did he have a feeling that today would be the last time that he saw her?

\------------------------------

Chaos frowned as she checked the map that she had been given again, she was on the right path and the cave in front of her was marked on the map. She sighed before she entered the cave, not noticing the shadow that followed her.

The path came to an end at a ledge, right above a small pool of water and she could see several rocks poking out of the wall. Chaos frowned. Did someone give her the wrong map on purpose? She sighed and she turned around, she knew what the herbs looked like, it couldn't be that hard to find them, right?

She bumped into something that was not there before, she gasped and she looked up to see the cruel smirk of a fellow villager.

"Long live Lord Dream." He simply said, before he pushed her and for a moment, she was weightless, just floating there, right before gravity hit her and she fell, seeing her surroundings become a blur, right before she hit one of the rocks poking out of the wall with a loud crack, before her momentum and the angle of the rock caused her to slide off of it, crashing into another rock.

She was flung around like a rag doll, eventually landing right next to the pool with a loud and sharp crack. She couldn't breathe! She tried to get up but it hurt too much! She couldn't feel her legs! Her arms just lay there and she felt the bile building up in her throat when she saw something white poking out of one of her arms.

Bone.

Blood exploded from her mouth, coating the ground around it. She couldn't see the villager who pushed her. He was gone.

She was right, she shouldn't have agreed to this. She wasn't going to be able to keep that promise. Tears built up in her eyes. She wasn't going to see him again.

Her tears mixed in with her blood as more of it spilled from her mouth.

"N-N-Nighty..." She muttered, feeling tired as her vision started to give out. "L-L-Love you...."

She knew that there would be no response and it hurt, more then her fellow villagers betraying her. There would never be one again and that made the pain hurt even more. There was so many things left unsaid and incomplete, she would never see him again. She was leaving him on his own and she refused to do that.

But she was too weak. Her eyes finally closed and a rattle left her mouth, she wanted to see him again, one last time...

She died alone in that cave and Death came to claim her. The Reaper carried the battered and broken spirit to the Underworld, where she would be judged.

She choose reincarnation, she wanted to see him again, she had a promise to keep and she would find a way back to him.

Somehow, someday, she would see him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yeah, I left it up in the air if Dream ordered one of the villagers to kill her, or that one did it without Dream knowing about it.
> 
> Chaos and Nightmare are not a couple, they're adopted siblings.


	2. Rebirth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Death wasn't enough to break her promise, she would find her way back, somehow....
> 
> She may not had the Red Soul of a Determined Human, she had a Green Soul of Kindess, but nothing was going to stand in her way...
> 
> Besides, even without a Determined Soul, she wasn't going to leave her Big Brother without a fight....

She was an Swap!Sans with a difference, this Sans had brown ghost hair and she belonged to one of the many Swap!AUs scattered across the Multiverse.

And from a young age, she had been haunted by nightmares, of a life that she had lived before, as a human.

The Swap!Sans kept her real gender, the name that she preferred and her nightmares a secret, her Papyrus had a bit of a controlling personality, he never turned it towards her, as long as she played the part that he wanted her to play. He had accepted a long time ago that Sans would have hair.

She wanted to go home, she never felt the Family Bond with Papyrus, she knew who had the bond instead.

Nighty, she missed him so much. She had to find a way back to him.

This wasn't her home.

The human was a breath of fresh air, both Chara and Frisk were nice to her, but they did have a bad habit of doing genocide runs when they were bored. Sans was never hurt much during these runs, mostly because Sans had learned that it was quicker and easier to just let it happen.

All three of them knew that they were trapped in this endless maze of Resets and Timelines, so, they might as well just stop trying to fight it, go with the flow and have fun with it.

Papyrus remembered too, but Sans never told him that she remembered, she occasionally pretended to have a case of déjà vu whenever she met the human but she would it brush it off afterwards. Papyrus wanted the Resets to end, because they were starting to interfere with his control and that made him uneasy.

It also meant that Papyrus started to become more mean and angry at everyone and not even a plan to just stop resetting and just live on the surface for a few years helped.

He just got angrier and even more mean, and eventually, he Dusted Sans during a Genocide route, by pushing him off of a cliff in Hotland.

The incident brought everything back to the Swap!Sans, no, it brought everything back to Chaos. She remembered everything!

The human Reset that timeline and in the new one, Sans moved out of the house that he shared with Papyrus once the human had reached the surface.

Papyrus was not happy about that, but that's when Sans dropped the bombshell, revealing to Papyrus that she was a girl, that she was sick of his crap, that he wasn't her brother, that she remembered everything and enough was enough.

"I refuse to be your puppet Papyrus." Sans told him. "I am done being your little toy and I'm going to find my real brother and keep a promise that I made to him a long time ago, I have someone waiting for me to come back. Don't bother me ever again and leave me alone."

She slammed the door on her way out, walking through Snowdin, where many Monsters had been waiting for this day for quite some time, they knew that Sans would eventually snap and move out from Papyrus's control and start all over again somewhere new.

Sans really did take that to the limit, she changed her name, her style of clothing, her style of hair and she often walked around with her ecto body formed, choosing to move halfway around the world, to Japan, once the issues of Monsters rejoining the surface world were figured out.

Chaos loved Japan, she was finally free to be herself again, years passed, and she soon reached the age that she was when her first life came to an end.

She often sent letters and gifts back to Chara and Frisk who kept her informed about what was going on back home.

Apparently, they were part of something called a Multiverse, because a few years after she left, Chara and the others met another skeleton called Dream.

Chaos couldn't help the shiver that went down her spine when they told her that.

Dream...

It had been a long time since she thought about that Annoying Sunshine Idiot, she hadn't seen him since that day, so she could be forgiven for the spit take that she did with her tea over her monitor when she saw the photo of him that Chara took for her.

Because when did Dream go through puberty?! The information that Papyrus was trying to join Dream's group, Justice Reigns, was just as worrying...

And Dream's goal of getting rid of all of the negativity in the Multiverse, what the hell had he been smoking?! Getting rid of all of the negativity in the Multiverse was impossible, because it was in everything and everyone, it was a part of them.

Chara and Frisk had learned a long time ago that to deny each other was impossible and it just caused a lot of pain and sorrow in the future, it was better to learn how to get along with each other. Dream had not gotten the memo about that when it came to positivity and negativity.

Chara then told her about three of their most wanted fugitives, they had been given Wanted posters for all three of them. Chara was still laughing because their greatest crimes were being pranksters and pranking Dream and his group. Chara wanted to exchange tips and prank ideas with them.

Chaos got to see the Wanted posters, the one with the tearmarks reminded her of Undyne, the one with the red scar on his cheek was hot and she wasn't afraid to tell Chara that through the video chat that they were doing, but it was the final one that caused her to fall out of her chair.

"Nighty?" She asked, reaching out and touching the monitor's screen.

"You know him?" Chara asked her.

"Do you remember what I told you and Frisk about 'Before' for me?" Chara and Frisk were the only ones who knew about her past life. "That's him, the guy that I promised that I would come back for."

They were silent for a few seconds before Chara continued to update Chaos on what was happening, but the news about Dream still bothered her, even after the video chat ended.

She decided to let things play out and to see what happened next, she had been out of the loop when it came to her original AU for quite some time.

She later got a message from the Queen that caused her to silently seethe in anger, Papyrus had gotten himself into a lot of trouble with Dream's right hand man, another skeleton named Ink.

It was so bad that Papyrus was being transported straight to JR's main headquarters to be sentenced and as the only member of his family that was still alive, even through their friends had made it clear that she had cut her ties with him a long time ago, she had to be there.

So, Chaos packed everything up, placing everything in her inventory space, handed in her notice for her apartment and her job, and headed back to Chara and Frisk.

She was not happy that she wasn't even allowed to strangle Papyrus for his actions. She found herself waiting in Dream's office while she waited for Dream and Ink to finish booking Papyrus in. She was bored.

She was grateful when the alarms went off, she had something to do! She followed the sounds of fighting and laughter, even screaming, only to laugh her head off when she found the tearmarked one running from Dream and Ink, wearing one of those hula girl costumes.

She went down the passageway where the group of skeletons had come from, the skeleton with the red scar was trying to pick the lock of a cell, that had another skeleton in it, who was wearing a very familiar circlet.

"Nighty..." Chaos muttered before she took a deep breath and stepped into his line of sight.

\----------------------------

Cross turned around when he heard footsteps behind him, to find a Swap!Sans staring at his Boss. This Swap!Sans was different, there was something strange about him, and Cross wasn't talking about the long brown ghost hair that he had.

"You're picking that lock wrong." The Swap!Sans told him.

"Oh, it's not like you can pick the bloody lock." Cross fired back, only for the Swap!Sans to smile.

"Can I try? Please?"

Cross sighed, this was the last thing that they needed.

"Oh, come on, can I have a go, please?"

"Alright, fine, you can have a go!" Cross snapped, handing the lockpicks over to the Swap!Sans. "But you're taking the blame if things go wrong!"

"Okay!" The Swap!Sans bounced over and he started to work on the lock, humming as he did so.

Cross kept an eye out, until a click came from the lock.

"I did it!" The Swap!Sans said as he removed the lock. "The Annoying Sunshine Idiot really needs to get some better locks. This one was too easy!"

Cross couldn't help but laugh at the name that the Swap!Sans had given Dream but Nightmare was shocked.

Because apart from him, only the creator of that name for Dream knew about it, so how did this Swap!Sans know about it?!

The Swap!Sans was about to turn to look at him, when an explosion went off.

"I think that we should get out of here." Nightmare said, he could worry about this later.

"Agreed, come on Boss, let's go!" Cross yelled, only for the Swap!Sans to coo at Nightmare.

"Awwww! Nighty, you've found more minions!"

"Shut up Chaos!" Nightmare yelled, only for him to slam his hands over his mouth once he realised what he had said.

"You remember me!" Chaos yelled, scooping Nightmare up into a cuddle. "I thought that you had forgotten about me!"

"Damn it Chaos! Let me go!"

"Noes! I must cuddle you and hug you! I have years of physical affection that I must catch up on!"

Cross dropped his knife, he had heard about Nightmare's first minion, and Error had heard about her too, but wasn't she supposed to be a human and why was she a skeleton now?!

"We can have a cuddle pile when we get home." He eventually said, after he picked up his knife.

"Cross!" He heard Nightmare yell. "You traitor!"

He shook his head and he started to lead the way out of the cell block, passing by a cell that had a Papyrus in it.

"Sans! Put down that criminal!"

They all stopped to look at the Papyrus and Chaos just sighed. "There isn't anyone with that name here." She snarled. "Oh wait, I forgot, I stopped going by that name a few years ago, when I cut ties with you!"

Nightmare looked at Chaos, who actually had dropped the friendly, happy look that a lot of the Swap!Sans were well known for, she actually looked upset and angry.

"And as I told you before, you are not my brother, even if we are related by bone and Magic, you were never my brother. I never even wanted to be part of the Royal Guard but you signed me up without my consent or permission.

I am not a toy that you can throw to the ground and leave alone to gather dust when you get bored Papyrus, I have a mind, emotions, the ability to talk and the ability to think, feel and choose what path that I want to follow and if you really were my brother, then you would have accepted that, and you wouldn't have Dusted me by pushing me off of a cliff in Hotland, into Lava, when I disagreed with you, even if I should thank you for that. You helped me remember what I forgot, by killing me the way that I was killed in my first life, without the lava."

Nightmare gasped.

"Goodbye Papyrus, I hope that you rot in that cell of yours, because I am not coming back to save you. I have found my real brother and we have a lot to catch up on."

Chaos walked on ahead, carrying Nightmare, with Cross catching up to them.

"The villagers killed you..." Nightmare eventually said.

"I don't know about that." Chaos told him. "If he was acting on his own, or they actually planned it, but I'm sorry. I wasn't there for you when this mess started, when you needed me..."

"You can't change the past." Cross spoke up. "But you can change the future, you're here now, right? You came back to him, you could have chosen to stay out of this mess but you choose a side, even though it could mean that you'll lose everything, you came back and that is what you should be proud of."

"Yeah." Chaos said, smiling. "Come on, let's pick up the other minion and go home."

"We might need to pick up a shovel on the way back." Cross was smirking.

"Why do we need a shovel?" Chaos asked as her eyelights turned into question marks.

"Well, because of..." Cross leaned closer to where an ear would be on Chaos, noticing that the Swap!Sans was a little bit shorter then him, before he started to whisper.

Nightmare blushed since he could overhear what Cross was telling to Chaos, he dug out his phone and he quickly texted Error.

_'Hide the shovels when you get back!'_

_'Why?'_

_'Just hide the shovels Error, I'll explain when we get back!'_


	3. Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so this is the end of Chaos's backstory, but you can find more stories involving this character on my Wattpad account, which has the same name as my AO3.

Error was surprised when a group of three, instead of a group of two, turned up at their home.

 **"Who is this?"** He asked, trying not to twitch since he recognised the newcomer as a Swap!Sans and not just any Swap!Sans, but the one that he ran pass earlier.

"Hi!" Said the Swap!Sans. "I'm Chaos, or Senpai if you want to call me that, I was Nighty's first minion, now, I believe that we need to have a talk Error!"

**"About what?"**

"You dating Nighty." Chaos said as she held up a rusty shovel.

"Chaos, no." Nightmare said.

"Chaos, yes!" The Swap!Sans said. "I have a century of being your minion/foster sister to catch up on!"

 **"She is not staying here with us!"** Error hissed.

"And did I mention that I know how to cook?"

Nightmare groaned. "I am going to kill whoever decided to have her reincarnated as a Swap!Sans." He muttered, right as Chaos started to chase Error around with the rusty shovel.

"Well, at least we have someone who can cook now." Cross said as they watched the carnage. "No more questionable burnt food!"

Nightmare nodded his head. "Well, that is a good point."

"Should we stop her from trying to threaten Error with that shovel? I do not want to know where she found that rusty shovel."

"You're not supposed to question that Cross, she's a Swap!Sans, they break reality and it doesn't matter which AU that they come from, they all share that ability."

"Well, I guess that things aren't going to be boring around here anymore."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, I will be adding extra chapters to this story, to explain how she ended up in 'Code of the Soul' and there will be other chapters as well, to help set up some plot points that will be important in the future.


	4. Missing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is how Chaos entered up in 'Code of the Soul', and how she and Greytone met each other.

This was worse then the time that he lost her all those years ago...

Nightmare was hyperventilating into a brown paper bag, even as Error tried to calm him down, snapping at Dream when he got too close to them.

Cross was glaring at Dream, they didn't have the time for this!

Dream had ambushed them while Chaos was on the way back from visiting her home AU, one thing had lead to another and by the end of it, Chaos had been sent flying into her half closed portal which sent her somewhere else.

She had only just gotten the hang of creating portals, so who knew where she was right now?!

Nightmare had lost it when five minutes had passed and Chaos hadn't shown up. He started to scream at Dream, before he curled up into a ball, hyperventilating into the brown paper bag that Error had given him.

He couldn't even sense her emotions!

Dream wasn't even helping with his positive aura, it was making things worse and sending Nightmare swirling deeper into his own head.

Cross eventually knocked Dream out, before they made their escape, their was a possibility that Chaos took a portal back home, instead of coming straight back to them.

She still hadn't learnt how to control her urge to strangle Dream, until he was out cold, or he had learned some common sense.

\-------

Chaos groaned as she woke up. "I am going to kill that Annoying Sunshine Idiot." She picked herself up, brushing off the dirt and dust on her body and redoing the ribbon that was keeping her hair back.

It seemed that she had been transported to another AU, but she didn't have the time to explore it, she needed to go back home.

She raised a hand up, intending to summon a portal, when the ground underneath her feet started to shake.

She lost her balance and she nearly fell over, but she regained her balance, before she looked at the sky above her.

The wind around her was starting to pick up, something was wrong. There was nothing wrong with the sky, but she couldn't help the sinking feeling that she was getting in her bones.

If this was a trap meant to kill her, like the last one, she was going to kill Dream when she got her hands on him.

The heavens above her burst, and a deluge of rain soaked her to the bones, even through, there wasn't a cloud in the sky.

Chaos quickly started to run, looking for the nearest shelter, even as the dirt around her became mud.

\-----

She eventually found a shelter in a cave, and she wasn't the only one. There was other monsters here.

Most of them looked like that they had came from a Fell AU, but Chaos had not seen a lot of Fell AUs, but she could recognise the Swap Monsters with them.

They weren't from her AU, but she could clearly see a Papyrus cradling a sick looking Sans.

She winced when she saw them staring at her.

"Hey Kid." The Papyrus said. "Your AU got dragged into this mess too?"

Chaos was confused, but she still answered. "Nah, I don't think so, I'm kinda an Outcode. I still have an AU, but I prefer to live outside of it."

She slowly shuffled away from the Swap Monsters. "I'm just going to find a random corner and sleep in it for the night...."

"Your Papyrus wasn't kind to you, wasn't he?" Papyrus threw a blanket at her that she caught. "The Fells have the left side of the cave, and we have the right side, there should be a corner deeper in the cave, but don't go too far, the deeper caves were claimed by the survivors of this AU."

Chaos nodded her head, even as she made her way to the corner, clutching at the necklace around her neck.

'I wanna go home.' She tried to summon a portal again, but it didn't work. She was trapped here.

\--------

Things went from bad to worse.

This AU was a Horror AU.... Chaos had been scared of Horror AUs ever since the Blue on Dream's side had used a portal to send her to a Horror AU where she was nearly eaten...

She shivered underneath her blanket, even as the Papyrus picked her up so that he could move her to the Swap side of the cave.

The Horror Monsters were starting to act weirdly, something was wrong....

The sudden boom caused most of them to scream.

"Into the Deeper Caves!" Papyrus yelled, picking up both of the Sanses. "And seal them behind us!"

The sick Sans clung to his brother as he ran and Chaos was shivering, holding onto her necklace tightly, chanting a prayer about the Tree of Feelings.

The running Monsters sealed the caves behind them, and they settled down to wait, but even down here, they could still hear the booms....

"Papy..." The Sans sobbed, burying his face into his brother's hoodie.

"Shhh... Sans. Everything is going to be okay." Papyrus told him. "We're going to be okay Sans, I promise."

Chaos fell asleep to the sounds of war.

\---------

Everything had changed again when she woke up. The air felt different, it was heavier and for every breath that she took, she felt like she was choking.

It seemed that some of the other Monsters had been too slow to keep up with the rest of them. She couldn't see them anywhere.

The Monsters were mainly grouped together depending on which AU that they came from.

The Horrors had taken the more darker parts of the Deeper Caves, the Fells had taken the more defensive part of the Deeper Caves, while the Swaps were right in the middle of them.

Chaos shivered, she was so cold, even with the blanket around herself, she just wanted to go home.

The ground softly shook underneath them, waking a lot of the other Monsters up.

Whatever had caused those booms earlier was still alive and active....

Chaos started to chant her prayers again, in an effort to calm herself down, she didn't understand why she felt so heavy and why it hurt to breathe, nothing was wrong with her...

The ground slowly calmed down, and nearly every Monster there looked at each other, was it worth the risk of checking that it was over? Could they be sure that it wouldn't start up again the moment that they undid the Seal?

A hushed discussion broke out between the leaders of the three sides, they were really unsure about this...

Chaos just focused on controlling her breathing, and with every breath, it got easier for her to breathe.

But eventually, it seemed that the leaders had reached a decision, the Seal was undone, and everyone started to slowly shuffle towards the entrance.

Chaos kept the blanket wrapped around her shoulders, it was strange that it was so dark right now.... She knew that she had slept through the night, where was the Sun?

"May the Angel save us all....." The Monster at the head of their group muttered when they finally saw the outside world. Chaos was confused and she was very worried at the same time.

"Papy..." Sans was crying, it seemed that he had seen something that wasn't right....

Chaos slipped through the crowd and she gasped when she saw the outside world....

It was so grey... The sun was gone, hidden behind clouds that weren't there before....

And it was empty, the forest that she had been running through earlier, was gone, just like that....

Just.... what was going on here? This wasn't normal.... Just... How many AUs were pulled into this mess? How many of them were going to die?

She didn't want to die again! She still had scars from her first death, as a human, and from the time that her Papyrus Dusted her....

But they all stopped when they saw a pile of dust, by the shattered remains of an axe.

"Shit..." Chaos hissed. The Sans of this AU was dead and she didn't know what this fusion of multiple AUs was doing to the Resets......

Wait, two or even more AUs fusing together, meant that the human population exploded....

And most counties had access to nuclear weapons....

"Fuck!" The humans had killed each other, and while Monsters would survive the fallout, the radiation would have weird effects on a lot of the Monsters....

She did not want to know that would affect everyone here...

Wait, if the Sans was dead, who was stopping the AU from corrupting and collapsing on itself?

She had no clue if there was any other Sans here, apart from her, and the sick one...

But the heavy weight on her shoulders wasn't going away....

She had a feeling that it never would.

\------

It was surprising how quickly their group had broken apart after they got out of the caves, the Horror Monsters scattered themselves all over the place, the Fell Monsters went back into the caves, and the Swap Monsters spilt up into smaller groups.

Chaos snuck away from her group when the chance came, she had no problems with the Swap Monsters, but being too close to a Papyrus was bad for her. She still had the scars from her Papyrus and his treatment of her...

She just couldn't accept the idea that a Swap Papyrus could be nice, she knew that it was possible, but to actually see it, had opened up a lot of old scars....

She just wanted some time alone, but she did return the blanket before she left the group.

She couldn't stay with them...

She walked on, just letting her feet choose where she was going...

She couldn't see the stars and that bothered Chaos the most, she had always had a connection with the Stars, starting from her first life, and even today, she still had that connection...

She sighed, even as she tasted the grit in the air as she breathed.... So much had been lost, and no one knew if they could get it back....

She stopped walking when she heard a growl.

She quickly turned around, summoning a bone attack, to see what looked like a Greater Dog?

This wasn't going to end well... Chaos found herself sweating, even as she summoned more bone attacks, but the Greater Dog like creature seemed to be more interested in the bones....

"Errrrrrr...... Fetch!" She flung several of the bone attacks as far away from her as she could.

She started to run for her life, even as the Greater Dog like creature went after the bone attacks.

\------

She eventually found some form of shelter in a ruined building. It wasn't a building that she recognised, it had been twisted and broken in the fusion of the AUs.

It wasn't the best shelter that she had, but it was good enough.

The building was on the edge of the remains of what had once been a city, and she could hear noises at night. Was it more of those dog creatures or was it something else?

But no matter how much she wanted to, she couldn't summon a portal to take her home. There was several more earthquakes, the crushed together AU fusion was starting to calm down, but Chaos clung to her Blaster Hammer whenever she had to make a supply run. She had built up quite a lot of supplies, but it was getting too dangerous to stay in the remains of the city, the creatures were getting closer to her shelter.

It was after a close call that she had to leave.

Chaos winced as she carefully placed some of her weight on her bruised left ankle as she walked. She had nearly gotten herself killed one night because she had been careless.

The clouds still blocked out the sun, but at this point, she had figured out how to tell the difference between night and day.

She wandered away from the city, taking everything that she had managed to find with her. The supplies would be useful.

She wrapped a scrap piece of cloth around her skull and her mouth as she walked, blocking out most of the dust and the ash.

She didn't see anyone as she walked, so seeing the creature made out of fire in a cave system that she was going to sleep in, was a shock.

But it was a welcome relief at the same time, she thought that she would be alone, trapped here forever, for the rest of her life...

"Hey.."

The fire creature jumped, turning around, only to stare at the Sans, before she smiled. "When did you get here Stranger?"

"I have been here for a while." Chaos sat down next to the fire creature. "I actually just got here, thanks to an accident with a portal, before things went boom."

"So, you survived 'The Crush' then?"

"The Crush?"

"It's what some of the other survivors have taken to calling the moment where everything just fell apart." The fire creature looked at Chaos. "And you're actually holding up pretty well, considering you are actually keeping this place from getting worse...."

"Yeah, you tend to figure that out when you have time to think and you have to adjust to a new weight on your shoulders, plus, what else could I do? I don't even know if anyone is coming to help us..."

"Others can get in, but they can't leave, and a lot of them have tried to do that...."

"So, there are other Monsters here?"

"I'm setting up a town in this cave system, it won't be much but it's all that I can do, I can't do anything more then that..."

"That is actually a lot better then doing nothing...." Chaos placed her hands behind her head. "Do you have room for one more, I may have hated it, but I do have Royal Guard training...."

The fire creature smiled. "So, which AU and Multiverse do you come from then?"

"There is more then one Multiverse?"

"Yeah... All of the AUs dragged into this, come from three different Multiverses, from what I know so far...."

"So.... There are Dreams that are not giant pricks with wings?!"

\----

Time passed and more Monsters started to slowly make their way to the town that Fire was setting up.

The small town itself was slowly growing and a year after it began, Fire opened her bar while Chaos finally managed to set up a rough Guard for the small town, giving command to an Undyne, before she quietly slipped into a sentry position.

She occasionally went out to get more supplies during a longer patrol, and during one of these runs, she met Greytone.

\-------

The Skeleton that she had found was covered in endless grey ash and dust. He was bleeding from his skull and he had collapsed on the ground.

But, he wasn't turning into Dust from how badly hurt he was....

She picked him up and she ran straight back to the small town that still needed a name....


	5. Nightmare and Dream

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoi! So, while Code was being written, I wrote a few side chapters, involving the Meme Squad, and DS!Dream! These are important and you will see why soon...

It had almost been two long years since Chaos had gone missing and nothing had been the same, for the Meme Squad.

Dream didn't care, he just went back to trying to hunt them down and executing them.

Nightmare pulled the hood of his cloak over his head before he lit the candle on the window sill. It had been Cross's idea to keep a lit candle on the window sill at night, a little flame of hope for all of them, a light for her to follow home.

She was too stubborn, too determined to just die. She clawed her way back from Death once, and Nightmare had a feeling that she would do the same to get back home.

The rain splattered itself against the window, and Nightmare had the sudden urge to kill someone.

He had been feeling like this, on and off, for quite some time now, but the feeling was so familiar to him and if he was honest, it feel like the times back in the village, when Chaos had another suitor after her....

"Oh fuck no!" He hissed, nearly banging his head against the window. "Not another one!"

 **"Not another what?"** Error asked.

"A suitor! Chaos found another freaking suitor!" Nightmare hissed.

 **"And it's not him?"** Error asked, looking at Cross, who was playing a video game, but he wasn't putting his whole Soul into it. He just kept looking at the controller that was just gathering dust on the table, because none of them wanted to move it.

Nightmare nodded his head, Cross wasn't being as sneaky as he thought he was, when it came to Chaos. Nightmare knew how to spot her suitors from a mile off, and he had quickly figured out that Cross was in the process of developing a crush on her, which could explain that right after he realised this, Dream tried to kill Cross, but then again, he didn't know if Dream had put two and two together, to get four... He didn't know if Dream had figured out about Chaos's reincarnation...

And if he was being honest, he liked Cross more than he had liked her other suitors, mainly because he knew Cross personally and he knew that Cross cared about her feelings, which was something that none of the other suitors had done but still.....

Why did he want to kill Ink?

\-------

He looked up from his paperwork. An old itch at the back of his mind was acting up again.

It had been acting up again for quite some time, even though the one causing it, had been dead for a long time...

Dream sighed. He did miss those days, sometimes, when things were different between him and Nightmare, but that was not the only thing that he missed from those days, he missed their Foster Sister too.

Their beloved, younger Foster Sister, who was immune to their auras and clueless to her suitors.

Dream sighed, where had those days gone? Chaos was missing, and dead by now, it was impossible for a human to live this long, even if they were Determined, and Chaos was one of the most determined humans that he had known, but even she had to die at some point....

He looked back at his paperwork, he just didn't understand why this was happening, I mean, this could only be happening if Chaos was alive again....

The pen dropped from his hand as the idea hit him.

Chaos was stubborn enough to claw her way back from death, she had been reincarnated!

Dream was then reminded of the other Swap!Sans, the one that hung out with his brother. He thought that he had just been seeing things, but the way that the Swap!Sans acted, the way that they wore their hair, the nickname that she used for his brother.... It matched everything that he knew about Chaos's manners and behaviours, she had come back to them!

Dream grabbed some blank paper and he picked up his pen again. Chaos would not be allowed to leave them again.

He was going to make sure of that...

Nightmare could take care of Chaos, for now, but once everything was ready, he was going to make sure that she never left them again.

He frowned, feeling another familiar feeling in his Soul....

Why did he suddenly want to kill Ink?

And he had to apologise for the incident with the portal, now, what was her favourite sweet treat again?


	6. Shell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shell belongs to Firehedgehog, and I just had to bring him into this story, plus, do you really think that 'The Crush' wouldn't just affect the Multiverses that it stole AUs from?
> 
> Something like that would get a lot of attention from someone like Shell, so there is a good possibility that Shell would be running around in the background, outside of 'The Crush', trying to help free everyone that was trapped inside of it.
> 
> And we get to see what the Meme Squad is up to...

Cross stared at the melting chocolate smothered mess in his hand. He would normally be shoveling his ice cream in his mouth by now, but time had changed things....

He sighed, before he dumped the sticky mess in the nearest bin. He wasn't hungry...

"That was a waste of a pretty good ice cream..."

He looked up, only to freeze when he saw Ink, but there was something different about him and now that he had a chance to look at him carefully, this Skeleton looked like Ink but he didn't feel like Ink and he wasn't dressed like Ink...

"What are you?" He asked. "Who are you?"

"I'm Shell." The Ink lookalike said. "And before you ask me, I am Ink, but I am not the one that you know, I'm from another Multiverse."

"What..." Cross whispered. "How is that possible?!"

"Well, the Ink here doesn't have a Soul right?"

"Yeah?"

"Then how do you explain me having one?" Shell asked as a floating heart appeared on his chest, before it disappeared.

Cross was silent.

"You can't, can you? The only way that it could be possible would be if I was telling the truth, right?"

"Yeah..." Cross mumbled. "But what are you doing here? Are you here to help Dream out?"

"Nah, I'm not here to help him."

"But you work for him!"

"You are confusing me with my Counterpart here, and I don't work for my Dream, because AUs are not the only ones that have differences, Multiverses can have them too, it's how you tell them apart from each other.

In my Multiverse, Nightmare was the one to eat the Apples, and unlike your Dream, who ate a lot of the Golden Apples, he ate a lot of the Negative ones, and he was covered in black goop because of it."

Cross giggled at the mental image of Nightmare covered in black goop.

"And he has tentacles as well."

"He's a hentai octopus?" Cross asked, and he was laughing at the same time.

"Yep." Shell smiled. "And my Dream is a fluffy short Skeleton with a bow, instead of a sword. Justice Regins doesn't even exist in my Multiverse.

Error and Blue are different as well, my Blue can break the fourth wall and he has a Warhammer of Doom and as for my Error, well, it's rather difficult to explain..."

"Why?" Cross asked.

"To make a long story short, I did something stupid and I lost my Soul, and well, Error had to find a way to make me take it back from him." Shell shrugged his shoulders. "It's confusing, but basically, I am Ink and Error, at the same time, I would tell you the full story but that takes a lot of time and I'm on a schedule that I have to keep."

"Schedule?"

"Yeah..." Shell sighed. "But, maybe you can help me, you see, about two years ago, about ten different AUs from a few Multiverses, were crushed together into one single AU, and one of the Multiverses that the AUs came from was yours, but the most troublesome part of this 'Crush' is that you can go in, but you can't get out, and I don't know if anyone has managed to escape from it, and time has frozen in there, so while it has been two years for us, it could have been a lot longer for those trapped inside, since some Multiverses may be ahead or behind yours when it comes to time..."

Cross was silent.

"And while it does have a Sans to keep it's coding from becoming even more corrupted and twisted, it doesn't have a Frisk or a Chara to Reset it, because the humans killed each other with their weapons and because of that, the AU looks like that it came right out of a post apocalyptic movie, complete with the mutant feral beasts running around, and I have been running around, trying to find a way to help them from the outside, because I can't take the risk of getting trapped in that AU, because bad things would happen if I got trapped in there...

So, did anything strange happen about two years ago?"

Cross was silent for a few seconds, before he answered Shell. "A friend went missing, a really good friend..."

"It sounds like this friend was more then a friend..." Shell grinned as he wrapped an arm around Cross's shoulders. "Come on Dreamswap Cross, tell your Uncle Shell about this friend of yours...."

"You're not my Uncle, and why are you calling me Dreamswap Cross?!"

"Because Dreamswap is the name of your Multiverse, now tell me about this friend of yours."

"No!"

"Yes!"

Cross crossed his arms over his chest and he huffed, but after a few minutes of this, he sighed, it could be good for him if he could get this off of his chest...

"Her name is Chaos and she's a Swap!Sans. She's a really good friend, and to be honest, if you asked me about two years ago, if I thought of her as more than a friend, I would have said yes, but now, I'm not so sure about that..."

"Why?"

"I was forced to suppress my hormones for quite some time, and when I finally managed to break that suppression, my hormones were all over the place. I don't know if I mixed the feelings towards a good friend with the feelings towards a crush. We clicked together really well but..."

"You clicked together a bit too much." Shell said. "And in time, it would have been like dating your sister."

"Yeah, and she wasn't the only one that I like more than a friend. I have feelings for Nightmare and Error too, but those two are together and I didn't want to ruin one of the few happy things that Nightmare has in his life, so I didn't tell them." Cross buried his face in his hands. "I am so confused, I find Chaos cute but Nightmare and Error are hot! I just don't know what to do!"

"Have you ever considered that by hiding your feelings for Nightmare and Error, you may have worried them?" Shell asked as he grinned, he could see the purple and the multicoloured eyelights in the bush close to them. "They could have feelings for you, but they don't want to say anything about it because they don't want to ruin your happiness as well."

Cross frowned, removing his hands from his face. "Then, what should I do?"

"Talk to them, tell them about your feelings." Shell said. "Or you can try the other method..."

"And what's the other method?"

"Spike their drinks, get drunk, play strip poker, and have a drunk threesome."

"SHELL!" Cross yelled, even as his blush covered his face.

"What? Sometimes you won't know if it's possible unless you try, and if you guys are willing to have a drunk threesome with each other, then that means that there is a possibility that you guys really like each other."

"Oh, it's not like you have been in love once!" Cross snarled at Shell.

"I have. I know what it is like to have a love so deep, that when you lose that one, you never fall in love again. You recover from their death, but you never recover from the love that you lost.

You never take another partner, because against the one that you loved so much, they can't hold a candle to their flame and when you thought of forever, you saw them by your side.

I am a God Cross, but Gods can fall in love too, and some love is so strong that it lasts long after it ends, especially if the other half is mortal. You treasure the memories from that time, because they are some of the most precious things that you have and you hold onto any physical items that remain from that time."

"Shell..."

"When you think of forever, who do you see by your side Cross?" Shell asked.

"Nightmare and Error." The Oreo answered. "Even though I know that Nightmare will live on after we die..."

"Then give him memories to help him through that time, give him hope that everything will be okay, one day." Shell told him. "And if you were to die tomorrow, do you want to take your regrets with you?"

"No... I don't." Cross said.

"Then make sure that you have none to take with you."

The two of them were silent for a few minutes, as Cross thought over what Shell had told him.

"Cross, how did your friend disappear?"

"She was on the way back home after she had visited her home AU and Dream ambushed us, and at the end of that ambush, he sent her flying into her half closed portal which had to have sent her somewhere else, and knowing her luck, she must have ended up in the AU that you was talking about."

"Do you believe in her? That she will find her way home?"

"Yes. We do all, we even have a lit candle that we place in the front window, at night, to help her find her way home."

"Then hold onto that belief and everything should be okay, I don't know how long it will take for everyone trapped in that AU to get home, but I know that they will find a way." Shell stood up. "I have to get going now, I have somewhere else to be, I'll see you around Cross..."

Cross nodded his head, even as Shell disappeared. He needed to think about what Shell had told him, he was about to get off of the bench when Nightmare suddenly sat in his lap.

"Hello Cross." Error sat next to them. "We need to have a talk."

"About what?" Cross asked.

 **"We actually need to try something first."** Error said, before he pulled Cross into a kiss.

Cross was blushing when Error let him go, but it got worse when Nightmare pulled him into a kiss.

**"We heard everything Cross."**

"And we have feelings for you too idiot." Nightmare said as he let Cross. "In fact, after she moved in, Chaos asked if we were a triad."

"What..." Cross whispered.

**"And if you are willing to try and see if this will work out, then we want to try too."**

"But..." Cross was interrupted by Nightmare.

"Cross, Chaos was stubborn enough to claw her way back from Death for me, so what do you think will happen if she has to claw her way back from that Crush for all three of us? She's just too determined to just roll over and die. She will be okay and when she gets back, she will hit all three of us for being idiots and being worried, to the point that we put our lives on hold, for her, when all three of us know that she can take care of herself."

"Okay..." Cross frowned.

**"So, we are going to follow Shell's advice, and have no regrets for when the day comes, for when we die..."**

"And even if she doesn't survive, Chaos would want us to be happy." Nightmare told him. "She wouldn't want us to get lost in our grief and sorrow, she would want us to move on and be happy.

So, for one night, Cross, let's be happy and move on with our lives."

"Okay."


End file.
